


Things That Could Break Us

by jujubiest



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Sazekiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-16
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-29 14:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean did what he had to do, just like he always does. Now, he and everyone else he loves will have to deal with the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel immediately knows something is wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for season nine.

The moment he laid eyes on Sam, Castiel knew something was horribly wrong. He may have lost most of his angelic powers to Metatron’s spell, but a few things remained. For instance, the ability to spy on angel radio. He couldn’t hear the thoughts of human beings anymore, only a blank, filled-in sort of _nothing_ when he looked into their faces that he assumed was all they ever heard from each other when they weren’t speaking. Looking into Sam’s face, though, Castiel heard—or rather, _didn’t_ hear—something different.

There was a studied and conspicuous silence hunkering in the corner of Sam’s mind.

He stiffened as they walked toward him, readying himself for a fight.

“Dean,” he said urgently, not taking his eyes off Sam. “There’s—“

“Cas!” Dean exclaimed, a wide smile splitting his face. Too wide. Not quite real. He strode forward and pulled Castiel into an embrace. Though it was only the second instance of such contact they’d ever shared, Castiel knew this wasn’t real either. Dean’s arms were too hard around him, rigid, and his hands were balled into tense fists against Castiel’s back. Warm breath hissed words into his ear.

“I know,” Dean said. “It’s fine. Trust me.”

When he pulled away the fear and pleading in Dean’s eyes told Castiel that things were far from fine. But he cast another glance at Sam—tired-eyed, careworn, smaller somehow, but it still _looked_ like Sam—and gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod of his head. He would trust Dean for now, and demand an explanation later.

“There’s nothing in the pantry,” he amended his aborted sentence, voice careful. “I’ll replenish our provisions while the two of you get some rest.”

“I’ll go with you,” Dean blurted, too loud. “I’m too keyed up to sleep anyway.”

Castiel only nodded. Sam smiled at him, and Castiel made himself smile back, hoping it looked more normal than it felt on his lips.

“Give me ten minutes,” he said to Dean, turning way to head back inside. “Then we’ll go.”

 _And we’ll talk,_ he thought grimly. 

* * *

 

The silence in the car was heavy. Castiel sat rigid in the passenger’s seat, unsure how to pry the answers to his questions from the man beside him. He knew from too much experience that when Dean didn’t want to discuss something, getting him to talk was like getting water from a stone _without_ the assistance of Heaven’s power. Getting angels to cooperate with demons would likely be easier.

 _Then again,_ he thought dourly, _I’ve proven it_ can _be accomplished._

For once in his life, Dean decided to make it easy by speaking before Castiel could muster the words himself.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he began, voice soft and flat as though he was hunkering down for a long and difficult fight. Castiel said nothing.

“He was dyin’, Cas. You were MIA an even if you weren’t, well…” he gestured at Castiel with one hand, indicating—Castiel supposed—his new status as a human being with no healing powers. “You know. Ezekiel tried to help, but…”

“He couldn’t heal Sam’s injuries,” Castiel said. It was not a question. He already knew Ezekiel could not have healed Sam’s body, because he, Castiel, had already tried and failed once before. He’d seen the damage, and it was deeper than merely physical wounds. What the trials had done to Sam was the human equivalent of cutting chunks out of an angel’s grace with a holy blade. He was already so disfigured Castiel could barely recognize him, and that had been much earlier in the process.

“No,” Dean said after a long pause, voice heavy now with guilt. “He couldn’t. Not from the outside, anyway.”

Castiel nodded. The inside was a different story. Very few things could destroy a vessel once an angel lived inside it. He wagered that being inhabited by an angel’s grace could even heal a shredded human soul. He thought of the broken body of the teenager who’d said yes to Hael, and of both of them dying on the point of an angel’s blade in the grass by the road. He felt a bitter, acrid burning in the back of his throat.

“Does Sam know?”

The look Dean threw him was almost panicked. Under other circumstances it would have warmed Castiel considerably to find how clearly he could still read the man, now that he only had his face and voice to go by. As it was he could only gape at Dean in disbelieving horror.

“Dean. You _must_ tell him. Sam has a right to know.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Dean snapped. “But he can’t know, Cas. Trust me.”

“Trust you? How did this _happen,_ Dean? An angel cannot possess a human being without their permission. What did you do?”

“I…we got Sam to say yes. He didn’t know exactly what he was sayin’ yes to, is all.”

Castiel fell silent, stunned. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Dean seemed to interpret his silence—correctly—as a condemnation.

“He was _dying,_ Cas. He wasn’t just at Death’s door,  he was fuckin’ having tea with the guy and finalizing his exit strategy. I couldn’t…” Dean stopped, took a deep breath. He stared at the road ahead as though it would offer up a suitable explanation, hands clenched on the steering wheel until the bones of his knuckles looked ready to tear through the skin.

“Look,” he said finally, voice marginally calmer. “I know this is fucked up, Cas, believe me. I _know._ But if we tell Sam, he might throw the angel out before he’s healed up enough. Zeke said—“

“ _Zeke?_ ” Castiel bit out, voice a dangerous rumble. He turned in his seat to face Dean more fully, face thunderous.

“This angel is not _me,_ Dean. He’s not a friend you can trust or a tool you can use.” Dean winced, but Castiel kept going, heedless. “He’s not a band-aid. He is not _Zeke._ He has his own agenda.”

“Hey,” Dean barked defensively. “ _You_ vouched for the guy! You said—“

“I _said_ that Ezekiel is a good soldier. Do you remember what that means? Do you recall when _I_ was a good soldier?”

Dean fell silent, face going slightly pale.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do. But hey…you changed.” His voice was small and not quite hopeful, like a child looking for a way out of trouble. Castiel turned away, preferring his own hands clenched in his lap to the view of Dean’s profile drawn in lines of anxiety, of doubts creeping in to replace the urgency that had pushed him, once again, to a desperate gambit to save the life of his younger brother.

“I doubt Ezekiel has that kind of incentive,” he said cryptically. Dean glanced at him and then back at the road, confusion adding to the mix of emotions etched across his features. He sighed.

“Look, it’s not forever. We’ll figure something out. We always do. Just…don’t tell Sam. Please, Cas. At least not until we can be sure if Ezekiel leaves it won’t kill him. Can you do that for me?”

Castiel clenched his jaw, his fists. He thought of Dean the last time they’d been sitting in this car, talking about his brother’s life. He thought of Dean on his knees in a graveyard, looking lost with his brother in the ground. His jaw unclenched but his fists stayed tight.

“Fine,” Castiel said. They finished the rest of the drive in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for season nine.

Sometimes Sam dreams of a cozy room in a quiet cabin with firelight flickering over features drawn with age, an expression of perpetual sorrow, or else eternal boredom. A voice tells him he’s done well, and he feels ashamed to know he will disappoint that praise.

Other times, Sam is floating in a soothing vale of nothingness. He has no body; his mind is blank. The feeling is both familiar and new, like an old nightmare soothed by a rough hand to his forehead, a husky lullaby crooning in his ear.

A voice falls from nowhere into nowhere. That voice is old, and kind, and terrible. He listens with no ears.

“Your brother loves you very much, Sam. Do you know?”

 _Yes,_ Sam replies without tongue or throat or lips. _He loves me_ too _much._

“More than you feel you deserve, perhaps?”

_What? No! Just…more than is good for him. He hurts himself sometimes. He doesn’t care enough about the consequences._

“You’re his blind spot. Is he yours?"

Sam doesn’t answer.

“Sam?”

_The first time I almost lost him, I got another man killed to save his life. Dean…he was devastated. But me? The truth is, I didn’t care who got hurt. He was more important. He was a hero! My hero. I couldn’t just let him die._

_I justified it. How many lives has Dean saved? People who would have died without his help. What’s one life in the face of dozens? Hundreds? The…the math looked good._

“And the second time?”

Sam would have laughed if he had a diaphragm, lungs.

_The second time? Same song, different verse. Only my dad was the one who made the call, and sacrificed himself in the process._

“A father who was never there dies, the brother who’s always there for you lives. A good bargain?”

 _Much as I hate to admit it,_ Sam says, _Yeah. My dad had a bad habit of leaving messes behind for Dean to clean up. Hell, it was the last thing he ever did. I loved him ‘cause he was my dad and kids love their parents. But I hated him for what he did to Dean._

“Hating your own father is a heavy burden for any child to carry.” The voice says it like he knows.

 _Nah,_ Sam answers reluctantly. _Hating him was easy. Loving him at the same time, though? That was hell._

“You would know,” the voice says, and there’s a mournful edge to it. Sam has no mouth to smile with, but would if he did.

 _Sounds like I’m not the only one,_ he says.

The voice says nothing more, and Sam drifts deeper into nothing. He wakes up the next morning feeling better than he can remember being in months…years, even. He feels as though a weight’s been lifted from his chest, a lightness he notices as the absence of a long-carried burden. Sam smiles at the gray walls of his room. He feels… _whole._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam grows suspicious of the voice in his dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for season nine.

_So…what do I call you?_

“I do not understand,” comes the voice, and Sam is reminded of Cas.

_Well, you’re in my head, apparently. Or…visiting me in my dreams, or…something. Wait…Cas—he’s an angel—he used to do that to Dean._

_Are you…are you an angel?_

The voice is quiet for just a little too long. It’s the only time Sam has heard it at a loss for words.

 _You’re an angel,_ he says blankly. There’s an angel in his head, one way or another. He isn’t sure how he feels about that.

“Yes,” the voice says finally. “I am. My name is Ezekiel. I’m here to help, Sam.”

 _You’re here to help? How are you here at all? Did you dream-walk me, or…are you…are you, uh…_ in _me?_

There is silence once more. He’s grateful for the lack of skin and blood vessels. He’s not so happy about the lack of a body with moving, tangible parts at the moment, though. It’s gone from free floating to feeling like he’s had his strings cut. He wants to take a deep, calming breath…and he can’t.

“Sam,” Ezekiel says, and it’s soothing, pacifying. Sam doesn’t feel all that pacified. He feels himself starting to panic in earnest. For the first time, he’s suspicious of this voice in his head. As the feeling settles in he wonders why he didn’t ask these questions sooner. He should have _known_ better. Even dreams can’t just be dreams when you’re a Winchester. The last thing he needs is an angel walking in his dreams or, God forbid, actually in his _head._

Sam used to have faith, in spite of everything. He used to think angels were creatures of love, guardians who watched over good people and kept them safe from harm. He still remembers how excited he was to meet Castiel for the first time, to shake an angel’s hand. He remembers being elated to realize they brought Dean back, to understand that there was really a greater power on their side. A small part of him has to admit he was even jealous, at first, to find out that Dean’s destiny was tied up with the angels.

All that awe and wonder had been stripped away a little at a time, though, disappointment after disappointment. Realizing you can’t trust _angels_ , that they _wanted_ humanity to fail, that they were just as bitter and flawed and capable of being evil and petty as human beings…it would shatter the illusions of someone far more idealistic than Sam. By the time he had to take the plunge and let Lucifer under his skin, he could think of nothing he wanted _less_ than to have one of those creatures inside him, controlling him.

Nothing has changed. He would never invite an angel in. But he recognizes it, now: the familiar-yet-new feeling. It’s how it felt to have Lucifer in his head, controlling his body and taking up all the space in his mind. Except…it’s gentler, somehow. Smaller. He has all this space to think and move, even if he can’t feel his own body. He’s not being suffocated or burned out slowly, like last time. It’s as if the angel riding him is also _shielding_ him from the worst of it.

Sam is quiet for a moment.

 _How did you get in?_ He asks finally. _You can’t just_ possess _people. We have to invite you! And I would_ never _say yes to you._

“Sam,” Ezekiel says again. “Please. You were dying. It was the only option.”

 _The only…_ how _did you_ get _in my head?! Get—_

“Wait! Sam, please, just listen. If you throw me out, you’ll die. And so will I.”

_So? I’d rather die than be possessed. I’ve been down that road, and I didn’t ever want to go there again!_

“I know!” Ezekiel sounds truly worried now, but he doesn’t push.

“I am sorry for deceiving you, Sam. But you must understand. You were dying and I was the only angel who would help you. But I was weak from the fall. I wasn’t strong enough to heal you from the outside. Inviting me in was the only way we both could survive.”

_Okay, so then why are you still here?_

“I was very weak, and you were almost gone. We are both still healing. If I leave now, I won’t live very long. And neither will you.”

 _Great. So…you_ conned _your way into the vessel that used to hold Lucifer himself somehow and now you have the perfect excuse not to leave it anytime soon. I’m sure you have no agenda whatsoever. This is all just for our good health._

“I realize I haven’t given you any reason to trust me.”

 _Damn right, you haven’t,_ Sam says. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just throw this angel out of his head already. Apparently he could if he wanted to, if the panicked way the angel stopped him from speaking earlier is any indication. It’s just…there’s something niggling at the back of his mind.

 _How_ exactly _did you get in?_

“Your brother,” Ezekiel says. “He sent out a prayer, to any angel listening. It was…it was the most desperate plea for assistance I have ever heard. It hit me like…I am not sure how to adequately describe the sensation.”

 _That makes no sense,_ Sam says. _If Dean needed an angel’s help, he’d just call…_

Except that Cas is human now, he remembers. Sam can just see Dean praying to Cas and, when he got no answer, turning it up for the whole room.

“I tried to heal you from the outside, first. When I could not, Dean begged me for another way. I told him the only thing I thought might work.”

 _And you’re telling me Dean agreed._ But Sam already knows the answer. Of course Dean agreed. He would agree to anything that kept Sam alive. That is and has  _always_ been their biggest problem. He wouldn’t kill Sam when their dad told him to. He wouldn’t let Sam stay dead the first time. He chose Sam’s life over closing the gates of Hell _forever._ Of course he would consider angelic possession preferable to Sam’s death.

But he had to know that Sam wouldn’t see it that way.

 _Dean can’t give consent for me, though,_ Sam says slowly. _I would have to do it._

“You did. You said yes.”

_Why would I?_

“Because your brother asked you to.”

Sam has no rebuttal for that, because he knows it’s the truth. If Dean asked him to live, he would live, no matter how much it hurt, no matter what the cost might be. Just because Dean asked. He asks for so little, so seldom.

 _I don't remember it,_ he says.

"I thought it would be easier," Ezekiel says, and he almost sounds ashamed. "I was afraid if you knew, you would eject me immediately and kill us both."

 _And Dean agreed to that? I'm gonna kick his ass._  Sam says. _Ezekiel..._ _I wanna believe you. Can you do something for me?_

“Possibly,” Ezekiel says, with an edge of caution to his voice.

_Can I have control of my body back?_

“Of course,” Ezekiel acquiesces immediately, and Sam finds himself sinking rapidly towards a blur of half-registered sensations.

 _Thanks,_ he blurts out, before he’s sinking into his limbs sprawled out across a mattress, covered by a warm blanket. His face is pressed into a cool pillow. He sleeps.

When Sam wakes, he feels rested. He feels _good,_ the way he always does when he wakes up lately. He has the vague sensation of having dreamed, but doesn’t remember anything specific.

 _Oh well,_ he thinks to himself as he stretches and throws off the blankets. _It’s probably for the best._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the worst situation Dean can imagine, so of course his life presents him with it. Sam, or Cas? If you had asked him that question in some rare quiet moment, he would have told you to fuck off and secretly hated himself both for how quickly he chose Sam in his mind, and for that split-second of hesitation when he wasn't sure he would.
> 
> But now? Here? Presented not with an uncomfortable hypothetical, but the horrific reality, does he risk Sam to save Cas?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for season nine.

It was Castiel’s fault, in the end, that Sam found out.

Dean knew it wasn’t fair to think of it that way. It was _his_ fault, not Cas. He made the call. What else could he do? He was picking himself up off the ground, amazed that they’d managed to just barely survive yet another of Abaddon’s attacks…only to realize that one of them wouldn’t.

He was getting tired of being backed into a corner by fate until it was a choice between watching someone he loved die and burning the world down around his ears. This time, though, it was worse: it wasn’t the _world_ or Cas. It was _Sam_ or Cas.

Cas was laying there in front of him, sprawled in a pool of his own blood, and it was Jo all over again, and Ellen, and Bobby. It was everyone he’d ever loved dying bloody right in front of him, but it was so much worse because this was _Cas._ Cas was never supposed to go, much less like this. Cas was supposed to go out in a blaze of holy light it would burn the eyes out of Dean’s sockets if he tried to watch. He was supposed to make a peaceful, tragically beautiful corpse, pale and still on the ground with the shadows of his wings scorched into the ground behind him. Not crumpled, bloody, sickly yellow with bruises blooming on his face and neck, arms twisted until they snapped and splayed out at impossible angles on either side. Not staring listlessly down at his own immobile form with glassy eyes, hearing his own death rattle fill the air around him.

Castiel was the one person Dean never thought he would have to see die like _this_.

Only…he didn’t have to. There was an angel here, locked away behind his brother’s eyes; an angel who was growing stronger by the day, an angel who could stop the blood from pouring and knit together the rib fragments poking through the shredded remains of Castiel’s jacket, shirt, and skin. Dean bit back the bile that rose in his throat. What if he broke Sam doing this? Was he willing to even take the chance?

Castiel’s eyes rolled almost lazily in their sockets, finding Dean’s face and fixing there. He opened his mouth to speak, and a sickening gurgle was all that came out.

“S…s-save him,” Dean rasped out hoarsely. There was no answer. He jerked his head around to look at Sam, who was climbing slowly to his feet and staring in horror at Castiel.

“Save him!” Dean barked, half-plea, half-order. Sam looked at him, face collapsing into lines of grief that would surely have been a mirror of his own if he could only make his muscles unfreeze.

“Dean,” Sam said, voice choked with sadness and sympathy.

“Don’t just stand there, _save him!_ ” Dean yelled. He was losing it, he could feel it. His legs unlocked and he lurched forward, grasping Sam by the lapels of his jacket and shaking him once, hard.

“Dean!” Sam yelled back, looking almost afraid. “What do you want me to do? I can’t _fix_ this!” Dean made a choked, wounded sound and grabbed Sam’s face in his hands, glaring into his eyes and willing the angel to wake the fuck up and _hear him._

“Sorry Sammy,” he said. “I’m not talkin’ to you.” Sam started to twist away, eyes pained, but Dean held on, desperate for a spark of blue, for the angel inside to reveal himself.

“Now you listen to me, Ezekiel, you bastard,” he growled. “I know you can fuckin’ hear me. Save him, you hear me? Don’t...don’t you dare let him die like… _this._ ”

What he meant to sound like a threat came out jagged around the edges and broken off in places at the ends, so that it was more like begging than anything. Dean didn’t _care._ He would get down on his knees and fold his hands and _pray_ if that was what it took.

He saw the instant Sam faded back and Ezekiel stepped forward. Suddenly Sam’s hands on his wrists were not supports but iron bands, prying him off and stepping away, turning toward his fallen brother and looking down with an expression full of so many emotions mingled together that Dean couldn’t even begin to untangle and define them.

Ezekiel knelt down.

”Hello, Castiel,” he said in a gentle voice. “I am sorry to see you like this.”

Castiel’s chest rose and fell with his short, shallow gasps for breath. He stared with wide, bloodshot eyes that flicked between Sam’s face and Dean’s with something like fear behind them. It twisted harshly at something in Dean, to see Castiel afraid. He knelt in the gore and reached out, gripping Cas’ shoulder gently, hoping to cause more comfort than pain.

Ezekiel reached out and pressed two of Sam’s fingers to Cas’ forehead. Dean watched his injuries fade, more slowly than Dean’s on the occasions Castiel had healed him. He winced at the pained, breath-starved noise Cas made when his ribs snapped back into place. But a moment later he took a deep, clean breath, and sat up, whole if not pristine. He looked down at himself, and then his eyes flicked back to Dean, and held there. Dean didn’t know what he was supposed to read in all that wide, reflective blue. Before he could decipher it further, Cas turned his head to look up into Sam’s—Ezekiel’s—face.

“Thank you,” he said, voice ragged. Ezekiel only nodded. There was more to be said, so much hanging in the air, but neither of the angels—ex or current—were talking and Dean wasn’t about to ask. They went back to the bunker and got cleaned up, and when Ezekiel receded he had wiped the entire incident from Sam’s memory. Not just the healing, but all of it. Dean and Cas avoided each other’s eyes and Sam’s for the rest of the evening, and Sam looked uneasily between the two of them and wondered what he had missed, and when. It was exhausting, and Dean decided to throw in the towel for the night. He collapsed onto his bed without even bothering to pull back the covers, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Only to wake up half an hour later to the sound of Sam’s terrified shouting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super perfectly satisfied with this, but I kind of lost my steam for this scenario when we were presented with an approximation of it in 9x03, followed by Ezekiel making me like him a lot less and beginning to suspect that he really is shady as fuck.


End file.
